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a quick reflection on my 28th year

Since I was little, I thought being 28 years old would feel momentous. It’d be the year that I’d finally be a Big Proud Adult that Knows What She Wants and Is Comfortable in Her Skin and Her Voice. I turned 29 last weekend, and I’ll just say that… I’m still working on all that. Though the fact of my age did compel me to do some big things.

I took an intense 6 month art class that challenged me to push my aesthetic sensibilities and taught me how to play and experiment with visual media.

I quit my job. I left EFF after four and a half years of working on international policy work, mostly advocating for the public interest in the copyright/access to knowledge domain. The timing all happened to align perfectly so that I felt good about leaving—the TPP, the thing I was fighting for most of my time there, got finalized and signed, but it was finally in a political rut that made it seem unlikely to get passed and binding on the signing countries (long story short, because of the presidential elections). I was sick of fighting the symptoms of a broken system, and wanted to pursue a different, more productive path towards change-making.

I realized that I’m already an “adult”, in the sense that I feel a level of responsibility for things that feel intrinsically tied to my identity. Though I have no fucking idea what I want, I know how I’d like to grow. My goal is to reconcile these feelings of responsibility with my hope to do and try more.

I had a set vision for what I might be like when I was 28. Though it was wrong in a lot of ways, it was right in that I’d finally be comfortable with myself. I can at least be proud of that.